Did Jesus have siblings?

[Rightlydivide]

Well, there is the “among which” part.

It also does not say HIS mother…

Correct. I do not believe we can extrapolate ChristisLord’s conclusion based upon one gospel.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Jesus Christ had biological half-brothers, and Jesus Christ is the Suffering Servant and Messiah who died for our sins and the iniquities of the world. Tell me how this denigrates Jesus.

It makes his mother an adulteress. That rather “messes up” the message of the story, now doesn’t it, as “example” if nothing else.

The reason you can say such a thing, “That it’s OK for Jesus’ mother to be an adulteress”, is that your narrow understanding of the whole of the deposit of faith is so weak.

The faith is a vast and interlocking beauty of truth, and to discount any small piece of it is to unravel the whole of it, making it unsupportable to oneself and obviously untenable to it’s enemies.

If that is a “small portion” of the truth to you, then I firmly recommend you re-evaluate your priorities. I believe the RCC needs to do so anyhow.

What you “need” from the truth is to believe and act upon it, not to mask it’s totality with it’s detail.

Best to you.

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Hey everyone, brother doesn’t actually mean brother anymore!

Hey, bro!? When did YOU emerge from my momma’s womb?

Does my saying that make you an uncle to my brother’s kid?

:shamrock2:

 

[LutheranDK]

This is one of the most common questions I’ve heard arise when people are questioning the Church teaching about Mary’s perpetual virginity.

Most will refer to the passage where Jesus is told his mother and brothers are asking for Him. The best reply I’ve heard for that argument, is the fact that the original language had no distinction between 'brother, sister, " and “cousin” or other relatives.

The arguments ussually go in circles, and non Catholic Christians aren’t satisfied because they don’t adhere to the idea of Sacred Tradition being as true and important as scripture.

Today I was teaching my son the song “immaculate Mary” (He was doing really well I might add! He actually gets the “salve salve, salve Regina” part much more clearly than the english words lol)… And I started thinking about all the objections lately about our beliefs concerning the blessed Mother. It saddens me so much to hear so much rejection of her from other Christians, especially during the Christmas season!

And this thought came to mind.. How would I respond if somebody tried to convince me that Jesus had other siblings?

Well… in addition to the fact that “brother and sister” could have very well meant “cousin” or “relative” (and I think somebody posted a while back that we actually know exactly which relatives were being referred to?)… Why do we not hear of these siblings during the passion of our Lord?

I mean think about it… At His last moments, Jesus doesn’t say to his “sibling” “Behold, your Mother!” … He says it to the disciple whom He loved.

If He really did have siblings, wouldn't they be responsible for their Mother? Why didn't He say "brother and sister, please take care of our Mother?"  Why are these siblings never named?

So in short… I don’t mean to cause discension, but this is one of the subject I hear so often when people reject Mary as the Mother of the Church, immaculately concieved, perpetual virgin, and Queen of heaven.

Thoughts?

Thank you for one of the more charitable posts regarding this subject
My objection, however, remains the same. The claim that koiné-Greek did not distinguish between “brother/sister” and “cousin” (not to speak of other relatives) is simply not true, as I pointed out in my #22 post in the now closed thread by Ag_not.

Having said that, the question of why Jesus entrusted Mary to John, and not a sibling is the one good objection to the belief that Jesus had biological siblings. Actually, the only good objection to it that I have ever heard from RCs

My answer is going to be: I do not know. There can be many reasons. One possibility is, that they were dead, and that she had no one left to take care of her. I do not buy that theory, however, as we know that at least one survived.
Another reason may be, that Jesus wanted a believer to take care of Mary - and if He had biological siblings, we know of only one (that I can think of right now…but I’m rather tired, so my memory might be playing tricks on me) that came to the Faith - and that was after the Crucifixion and Ressurection.

I simply do not have a bullet-proof answer to that question. But I believe that this difficulty must yield to the overwhelming evidence of the language used. Jesus’ “adelfoi” means Jesus’ brothers. The end.

Now, I’ve always found the “Queen of Heaven”-title for Mary quite…there’s no easy way to put this…blasphemous. But maybe it’s because I don’t know what you mean by that. What do you guys mean when you call Mary the Queen of Heaven?

 

[ralphinal]

(2 Sam. 21:8) - “But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite” (KJV).

(Must be a copylist error)

2 Sam 21:8 is not the same verse as 2 Sam 6:23.

A non-Catholic should know that. A Catholic might not

 

[ralphinal]

Correct. I do not believe we can extrapolate ChristisLord’s conclusion based upon one gospel.

Unless it is the only Gospel to mention it. How much of our Christmas story is from Luke?

 

[ChristIsLord]

Now, I’ve always found the “Queen of Heaven”-title for Mary quite…there’s no easy way to put this…blasphemous. But maybe it’s because I don’t know what you mean by that. What do you guys mean when you call Mary the Queen of Heaven?

**1 A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman 2 clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. **
2 She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.
3 Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems.
4 Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.
5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. 5 Her child was caught up to God and his throne.

i think this verse and of course genesis shows just how great mary was. protestants have unfortunately dumbed her down to basically a harlot with thier insistence that she consumated her marriage with joseph. to protestants she’s any dumb little girl who did her bit and went on with it. to catholics she is the mother of god, the new eve, the first disciple and the most important woman in all of recorded history.

 

[Rightlydivide]

**1 A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman 2 clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. **
2 She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.
3 Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems.
4 Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.
5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. 5 Her child was caught up to God and his throne.

i think this verse and of course genesis shows just how great mary was. protestants have unfortunately dumbed her down to basically a harlot with thier insistence that she consumated her marriage with joseph. to protestants she’s any dumb little girl who did her bit and went on with it. to catholics she is the mother of god, the new eve, the first disciple and the most important woman in all of recorded history.

Consumating your marriage does not make anyone a harlot. Notice the Catholic is calling Mary names, not us.

 

[ralphinal]

Consumating your marriage does not make anyone a harlot. Notice the Catholic is calling Mary names, not us.

Not all Catholics use that line of thought…

 

[ChristIsLord]

Consumating your marriage does not make anyone a harlot. Notice the Catholic is calling Mary names, not us.

what does it make her then? a baby mama? i doubt anyone is dumb enough to believe i am insulting mary, i’m simply showing how insulting yoru position is. it lessens mary’s role to basically a baby mama and that’s it.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Unless it is the only Gospel to mention it. How much of our Christmas story is from Luke?

Sure. But once again, I think that ChristisLord saying that Matthew can be used to ascertain who was where, when all four have a little to say in the matter, although certainly Luke is different, is not the route to go.

 

[Rightlydivide]

what does it make her then? a baby mama? i doubt anyone is dumb enough to believe i am insulting mary, i’m simply showing how insulting yoru position is. it lessens mary’s role to basically a baby mama and that’s it.

You are absolutely insulting Mary when you say that we are saying she is something she was not.
But once again, having children or relations with your husband does not make you a harlot. It just does not. Having children removes the perpetual virginity dogma, but it would not directly effect any of the other Marian dogmas(if one believes them).
It is not insulting to have other children. It is not insulting to have relations with your husband.

 

[ChristIsLord]

Sure. But once again, I think that ChristisLord saying that Matthew can be used to ascertain who was where, when all four have a little to say in the matter, although certainly Luke is different, is not the route to go.

matthew and mark almost conpletely agree, luke says nearly the same without naming names, the only one different is john. so three of the gospels share the same account, either way what i wrote definitely throws a nice wrench in the cog that jesus brothers were james and joses.

 

[LutheranDK]

**1 A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman 2 clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. **
2 She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.
3 Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems.
4 Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.
5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. 5 Her child was caught up to God and his throne.

i think this verse and of course genesis shows just how great mary was. protestants have unfortunately dumbed her down to basically a harlot with thier insistence that she consumated her marriage with joseph. to protestants she’s any dumb little girl who did her bit and went on with it. to catholics she is the mother of god, the new eve, the first disciple and the most important woman in all of recorded history.

sighs
Well, that was 30 seconds of my life that were utterly wasted…

1: You didn’t answer my question about what RCs mean when you call Mary “Queen of Heaven”.

2: You assume that this text is about Mary. However, that is not as obvious as it might seen - which the heavy devide between theologians on this issue clearly shows.
2,1: Even if this text WAS about Mary, it still does not follow that she is the “Queen of Heaven”.

3: “Protestants” also believe that Mary was (note: past tense) the Mother of God. To deny that Mary was Theotokos is to deny the divinity of Christ, which NO Christian does.
Oh, and btw: You say that Mary was the most important woman in all of “recorded” history. That means that you’re not excluding that there might have been a MORE important woman than Mary outside of “recorded history”, doesn’t it? Now, who’s degrading Mary?

(friendly reminder not to try to boast of yourself to a theologian, because you’ll lose…)

And your hateful, ignorant prejudices about “protestants” and what we think of Mary are so dumb that I’m going to waste my time answering them.

Now, answer the question I ask, or don’t answer at all. It’s a waste of your time, and, more importantly, mine.

 

[ChristIsLord]

You are absolutely insulting Mary when you say that we are saying she is something she was not.
But once again, having children or relations with your husband does not make you a harlot. It just does not. Having children removes the perpetual virginity dogma, but it would not directly effect any of the other Marian dogmas(if one believes them).
It is not insulting to have other children. It is not insulting to have relations with your husband.

you insult her yourself, to think the mother of god, overshadowed by the holy spirit and god incarnant growing in her womb then becomes josephs in regular marital relations to become pregnant again is degrading. the virgin birth is such a mystery, that many other religions call it pagan, done before, god having a child with a human woman.

that to render mary her due without besmirching her character demands perpetual virginity. without it she is either an adulteress or a baby mama, there’s no way around it. to become pregnant is such a significant act that without the perpetual virginity where does that leave mary?

 

[cfrancis]

She is not the spouse of the Holy Spirit. Her husband was Joseph. You cannot have two husbands.

Just some thoughts here:

• If a woman was pregnant outside of marraige with the son of a man, X, is that son a bastard?
  – Christ was not a bastard child; He was/is the Son of God and Mary, right? Doesn’t this indicate some relationship between Mary and God, the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:35 The angel answered and said to her, " The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; ) that prevents Christ from being a child born within an inappropriate relationship?
• Is it possible Joseph’s role was to provide the societal legitimacy (and protection) for Mary and Jesus?

Mat 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Lk 3:23 When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli,

We know Jesus was not Joseph’s son; is it possible both Lk 3:23 and Mt 1:16 represent that societal legitimacy?

 

[ChristIsLord]

sighs
Well, that was 30 seconds of my life that were utterly wasted…

1: You didn’t answer my question about what RCs mean when you call Mary “Queen of Heaven”.

2: You assume that this text is about Mary. However, that is not as obvious as it might seen - which the heavy devide between theologians on this issue clearly shows.
2,1: Even if this text WAS about Mary, it still does not follow that she is the “Queen of Heaven”.

3: “Protestants” also believe that Mary was (note: past tense) the Mother of God. To deny that Mary was Theotokos is to deny the divinity of Christ, which NO Christian do.

And your hateful, ignorant prejudices about “protestants” and what we think of Mary are so dumb that I’m going to waste my time answering them.

Now, answer the question I ask, or don’t answer at all. It’s a waste of your time, and, more importantly, mine.

it’s right in the text and of course it’s talking about mary. the crown around her head obviously denotes royalty and they are in heaven because the next verse the devil and his angels are thrown out of heaven.

read up on the queen mother of the davidic kingdoms too, scott han wrote a great book on it which you will never read anyway so why waste anyones time with the question?

 

[Rightlydivide]

you insult her yourself, to think the mother of god, overshadowed by the holy spirit and god incarnant growing in her womb then becomes josephs in regular marital relations to become pregnant again is degrading. the virgin birth is such a mystery, that many other religions call it pagan, done before, god having a child with a human woman.

that to render mary her due without besmirching her character demands perpetual virginity. without it she is either an adulteress or a baby mama, there’s no way around it. to become pregnant is such a significant act that without the perpetual virginity where does that leave mary?

No it is not degrading unless someone thinks that sex is degrading within a marriage. I do not think that. It does not besmirch someones character to have sex in marriage. She is not an adulteress because she has only been married to one man; Joseph. The Holy Spirit overshadowing her was not spiritual sex. She was a virgin and gave birth as such. If you consider what the Holy Spirit working in her to be sexual, that is your beliefs.
Mary did not commit adultery. She did have relations with her husband Joseph IMO based upon scripture.

 

[Rightlydivide]

cfrancis;4556175]Just some thoughts here:

• If a woman was pregnant outside of marraige with the son of a man, X, is that son a bastard?

Yes, that person is called a bastard. Mary is not pregnant by a man or the result of sex though. I do not believe there is a term for someone like that…oh wait…the Son of God!

–

Christ was not a bastard child; He was/is the Son of God and Mary, right? Doesn’t this indicate some relationship between Mary and God, the Holy Spirit

Relationship? I am not sure what you mean. It does not say anything about that.
I do not believe the Holy Spirit overshadowing her was sexual in any form. I am not sure if you do or not. My understanding is that only Mormons believed that.

(Lk 1:35 The angel answered and said to her, " The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; ) that prevents Christ from being a child born within an inappropriate relationship?

I do not believe that that Mary being overshadowed denotes a relationship. This seems vaguely sexual and inappropriate to think that the Holy Spirit had a physical or emotional relationship.

• Is it possible Joseph’s role was to provide the societal legitimacy (and protection) for Mary and Jesus?

We know Jesus was not Joseph’s son; is it possible both Lk 3:23 and Mt 1:16 represent that societal legitimacy?

Sure it is possible and to provide an example of a normal loving relationship. I see no reason to think otherwise

 

[ChristIsLord]

No it is not degrading unless someone thinks that sex is degrading within a marriage. I do not think that. It does not besmirch someones character to have sex in marriage. She is not an adulteress because she has only been married to one man; Joseph. The Holy Spirit overshadowing her was not spiritual sex. She was a virgin and gave birth as such. If you consider what the Holy Spirit working in her to be sexual, that is your beliefs.
Mary did not commit adultery. She did have relations with her husband Joseph IMO based upon scripture.

i never said sexual, but the holy spirit overshadowed mary, what that means i’m not certain but i do know she became pregnant with a child that was god incarnate which would seem to denote a special mission for mary which would make her god’s and like already posted the marriage to joseph was for protection and social legitimacy.

could you imagine a woman birthing god incarnate, then going on to have relations with a man and bearing his children?

the virgin birth is a mystery, the hows and what not are not known. but what i do know that by mary going on to have children with joseph is kinda strange after being impregnanted by the holy spirit somehow. it really reduces mary to nothing more than an ancient test tube or something.